False Teachers Teach that Sin Need Not be Taken Seriously, or that Christians Can Practice Worldliness, or that Jesus Never Required People to Deny Themselves for His Sake

Does your pastor teach that sin need not be taken seriously? Or that Christians can live as they please like the rest of the world?

Beware – you might be listening to the voice of a false teacher!

In her book Ruled by the Spirit, the late evangelical nun Basilea Schlink had this to say about true and false teachers:

Because true teaching is a gift of the Holy Spirit, true teachers are specially commissioned for their ministry. God has “appointed” them (1 Corinthians 12:28). They are then called by God to this particular office. Because of this, James warns: “Let not many of you become teachers… for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1). For teachers can lead large numbers of people either to live or damnation. What is taught is believed and forms a basis for life. Teachers who have followed the precepts of Jesus will be great in the kingdom of heaven. Those who have taught that His commandments should be kept “shall shine like the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars that for ever and ever” (Daniel 12:3). Conversely, those who falsify the teachings of God’s holiness and His laws, are small in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:19). Indeed they will be judged in terms of James 3:1. The danger that such false teachings might intrude was great, even in the times of the apostles. For example, it was taught that sin need not be taken seriously, because it was already cancelled for sinners through the atoning death of Jesus (Romans 3:7, 8: 6:1). Or that the New Testament Church need no longer fear the wrath of God, but could practice worldliness (Ephesians 5:6), or that Jesus never required people to deny themselves for His sake. Thus the offense of the Cross was avoided, and it was no longer taught that the way of the Cross was the only one befitting to a Christian, for Jesus had said “whoever does not bear his own Cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” But, if Christians were no longer to follow the way of the Cross, they would no longer be “in Christ”, they would merely be a misrepresentation for Jesus. They would fall away from God, disgrace the Lord, and bring perdition and destruction upon themselves (Philippians 3:18, 19).